Numerous examples of toy vehicles, such as automobiles, trucks, ambulances, racing cars and the like can be found in the art. The primary purpose of these toys is to provide means for children to entertain themselves. Some of these toy vehicles are designed to be ridden by the children. They can be propelled by pushing the toy or by pushing pedals which in turn drive the toy. These toys which a child pushes by placing his or her feet on the ground while sitting on the toy and pushing with his or her legs can be dangerous because other children may push the toy while the rider's feet are on the ground, causing the rider's feet to be caught under the toy and injured.
These riding toys do not have any means to prevent children from being injured in this manner. The invention addresses this danger by providing a movable floor panel which provides a surface on which a child can rest his or her feet while riding the toy and being pushed by someone else, yet slides out of the way to allow the child to push the toy with his or her own legs and feet.
Toy vehicles generally are not designed to serve an educational purpose, even though there is an increasing focus on this function. For example, some dolls are designed to teach infants how to dress themselves and some electronic toys are designed to teach children to associate animals with the sounds they make or to learn addition or spelling. Toy vehicles found in the prior art, however, are only intended to amuse children, and not to teach them.
Although toy vehicles exercise children's imaginations and sometimes their bodies, they do not attempt to teach children in the same sense as "educational" toys. The invention fills this gap by introducing operational elements of vehicles, such as the engine, spark plugs, air filter, coolant cap and oil dipstick, and by providing toy tools with which children can pretend to work on these parts of the toy vehicle. The invention thereby teaches children some of the basic elements of vehicle maintenance and gives them some familiarity with vehicle operation which allows them to grow into responsible vehicle owners and drivers as adults.